Saratoga native could make a difference in MLB postseason as Cincinnati Reds' video scout
There may well come a moment over the next month, as the Cincinnati Reds vie for their first World Series appearance in two decades, when, say, a replay seen by only three people or a pitch sequence from 2003 changes the course of the postseason.
Most Valuable Player candidate Joey Votto might find himself deep in the bowels of Great American Ball Park, wondering what to expect from Phillies ace Roy Halladay next time up. Should he look curve on 1-and-2? Or four-seam heat?
The man with the answer -- or the closest thing to an answer that baseball statistics can provide -- will be Saratoga Springs native Rob Coughlin. Some baseball fans don't miss a pitch all season. Neither does Coughlin. But he also notes the type of pitch, the location, whether the batter swung, and the result.
As the Reds' manager for video scouting, Coughlin helps prepare the extensive scouting reports for manager Dusty Baker's staff and players for every series, some 150 pages that influence everything from the lineup to late-game substitutions. He's also ready to cue up a key replay that can show a stymied hitter what went wrong. Coughlin picked the right year for his first full-time season, a grueling but rewarding year that continues when the National League Central Division Reds face last year's NL champ, the Philadelphia Phillies, in the Division Series beginning today at 5 p.m.
Like many of the Reds, this will be Coughlin's first taste of October baseball.
"I absolutely love it," Coughlin said by phone from San Diego during a recent off-day, only his third of the season outside of the All-Star break. "Being with the team every day, the nuts and bolts...I get paid to watch a whole lot of baseball and break the games down."
Coughlin, who grew up playing in the Saratoga National Little League and attended Albany Academy, went on to play centerfield as a captain at Wesleyan (Ct.) University. That experience honed his pitch identification skills, which he further practiced as a scout for Wesleyan after graduating in 2007. He became a fixture at Cape Cod Baseball League games, developing a portfolio of his scouting reports that he sent to major league clubs, looking for an opportunity. After biding his time learning the fashion industry, Coughlin found himself at baseball's winter meetings, and eventually landed an internship in the Reds' video scouting operation in 2008.
He has been the manager for video scouting since last November.
"I couldn't ask for a better job," he said.
Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, an outfielder for the San Diego Padres, was one of the earliest proponents of video, which can help players isolate a kink in their swing or compare a stance that worked with one that didn't. Nowadays, Coughlin uses a high-tech system called BATS - baseball analysis and tracking system - that works in real time. It has logged every pitch of every Reds game, and many others across baseball, for the past decade. The raw video allows players and coaches to call up specific at-bats from seasons past, but it also gets compiled into a database that identifies trends in opponents. When you see a shift in defensive alignment or a new pitcher warming up in the bullpen, advanced scouting is the likely reason.
The video work is part of a larger scouting operation, including a more old-school advance scout who goes to future opponents' games and provides additional notes for the Reds. Many players consume the scouting reports; others prefer to block out the numbers and head to the plate with one pitch in mind. Coughlin said he doesn't mind that some players neglect the stats. But in a sport where players have done almost anything (not all of it legal) to find an edge, scouting is invaluable.
"As a base runner, you can use specific information to anticipate when the slow pitch is coming, giving you that extra two-tenths of a second to steal that base," former outfielder Doug Glanville wrote earlier this season in the New York Times.
Coughlin, meanwhile, has been preparing for the playoffs for weeks, logging the games of the Reds' possible opponents. And you can bet the other teams are doing the same.
"If we don't start preparing for the playoffs before the regular season ends, we're behind," he said. "We don't play most American League teams, so we have to worry about them, too, if we're lucky enough to go deep in the playoffs."
Life in the major leagues has its perks. Coughlin travels with the team and has spent time with Hall of Famers like Joe Morgan, Hank Aaron and Johnny Bench. But it is also a demanding slog. Coughlin has little time away from the ballpark, and he often finds himself in a hotel in a new city at 4 in the morning. He couldn't do the job if not for an intense love of baseball, a love that once centered on the Yankees. Now he finds himself an integral part of the Reds' success.
He said the excitement in the Reds' young clubhouse, boasting rising stars like Jay Bruce, is building each day. Cincinnati also has veterans like Orlando Cabrera, Scott Rolen, and Miguel Cairo for playoff leadership.
"It's been a pretty incredible ride," Coughlin said. "We've had an up and down season. We had some really intense matchups with teams in our division, but we've finished strong."
It has been nothing short of a landmark year for the Reds; this is their first winning season since 2000 and their first trip to the postseason since 1995. (Cincinnati lost a one-game playoff to the Mets in 1999 with the Wild Card on the line; the game is remembered as Al Leiter's finest outing, as Leiter threw a complete-game two-hitter and the Mets advanced with a 5-0 win, sending the 96-win Reds home.)
Coughlin said his behind-the-scenes look at baseball has given him new respect for the physical toll of the long season. At this point in the year, he said, virtually everyone is playing hurt, but word of most pulled hamstrings and bruised elbows doesn't leave the clubhouse. Certainly, Coughlin's experience with scouting and stats puts him in line with the thinking of the sport's younger executives. The Moneyball era helped to popularize Sabermetrics, and more and more teams are focusing on deeper readings of stats when it comes to player evaluation. So does Coughlin hope to leave the video screens for another job in baseball someday?
"It's impossible to say how long I'll be doing this particular job. There are a lot of positions out there that I'd look into," he said. "But to be honest, I'm not looking past tomorrow's game."
For now, Coughlin can expect to live at the stadium throughout the postseason. He hopes to get back to Saratoga Springs for a couple of lazy days on the couch whenever the Reds' season is over.
"Hopefully that'll be sometime in early November," he said.